Review: Venom Is One Hell Of A Rushed Mess
- Oct 6, 2018
- 3 min read
It's hard to believe that Venom, Sony's latest attempt to build a Spider-Franchise (but without Spider-Man), was produced by big studios, on a big budget, with A-list actors. I just cannot fathom how this movie came to exist in its current form, given how many people had to write or proofread the script, or watch this movie, before deciding to go ahead and release it. I know Sony's fallen off the deep end in their desperate attempt to make absolutely anything into a franchise, from Smurfs to Men in Black to Jumanji, but I still don't understand how the Venom script made it into cinema.
Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is a reporter with his own show who gets a chance to interview Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), a mad scientist / CEO of the Life Foundation whose rocket full of alien species had crashed into the Earth recently. He blows it by asking about rumours of fatal human testing conducted by the Life Foundation, and getting himself and his girlfriend Anne (Michelle Williams) fired from their jobs. Six months later, one of the scientists (Jenny Slate) finds Eddie, and confirms his rumours, leading him to investigate the facility and find the alien symbiotes being tested on his friend. He helps her escape, and as a result, the symbiote bonds with him. The two form an unlikely friendship and team up to escape Carlton's men, and his own new symbiote.
One of the biggest problems with a Venom standalone film is the biggest motivators of the character are taken away. The character originally got the spider-abilities from Spider-Man, and both Eddie and Venom were driven by their hatred of Spider-Man. In this version, Venom has no Spider-abilities, rather, he just shapeshifts and, stuff. It's exactly the set of powers in the Prototype games, and doesn't really resemble Venom. He also has no reason to stay on Earth, and is instead given a couple of sloppy lines of dialogue to explain why he is on Eddie's side. And if that seems underdeveloped, just wait until you're introduced to the main villain about two scenes before the climactic battle.
That's right, Riot has basically no lines until Venom meets him in the climax. What follows is the most difficult action sequence to follow in the history of cinema, as this rubbery CGI mess of two symbiotes battle it out, and the cameraman apparently snorts his thirteenth line of coke in ten minutes. And then it's over - the battle is won, with basically no tension at any point throughout the third act.
It's as if a single writer watched every superhero movie before 2010 and took every last cliche from them (other than the classic skybeam) and crammed them all into one movie. This is why the MCU has given up on origin movies - we've seen so many at this point, that we know how to spot the cliches before they arrive. And Venom doesn't even try to hide it.
My other biggest issue with the film is how rapidly the film's elements are crammed into position for the third act. Anne shrieks at Venom in one scene, drives him around in the next, and wears him soon afterwards in an incredibly uncomfortable scene with way too many sharp-toothed aliens to achieve the sexy effect they were probably going for. There's no reason that Anne should suddenly be okay with the fact that her ex is now infected with a horrifying murderous alien, but she and the alien are besties mere minutes later. Additionally, as I touched on before, the villains have the most flimsy motivations and simply begin acting more villainous as the plot demands it. The movie goes from finding its feet, straight into the action-packed climax, with no time spent considering what is actually going on.
But fair's fair, Venom's titular symbiote has a number of funny lines, and the action can be quite neat. And if you've been paying attention to my reviews, you would know that I quite like some goofy dialogue and bad acting (hence my addiction to rewatching The Room). So I really did enjoy myself, and had a good chuckle at the mid-credits scene - if the movie was cliched, this scene was on another level, being the most predictable and typical mid-credits scene that anyone could ever write.
Venom is a mess of bad acting, infamously stupid dialogue, old cliches, underdeveloped characters, rushed plotlines, and CG that varies from top-tier to 2006 video games. The only good character is Venom himself, and even he has his "turd in the wind" moments. The movie certainly has its funny moments, and creative action, but it lacks in every other department. Good if you enjoy how lame the old superhero movies could be, bad if you like movies or the original character.
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